Great British Bake Off judge Mary Berry has confessed she hit her children with a wooden spoon when they misbehaved.

The grandmother, 78, admitted she was a firm believer in corporal ­punishment and said parents should be allowed to smack their children.

Cookery queen Mary told TV ­interviewer Piers Morgan how she would discipline her children Thomas, Annabel and William – who died when he was 19 in a car crash – with a ridged wooden kitchen utensil.

Speaking on his Life Stories show on ITV1, Piers asked Mary: “Is it right that you used to smack your children with wooden butter pats, which were smooth on one side and they had ridges on the other?”

Mary replied: “You are ­absolutely right. I had one upstairs and one downstairs. One side is smooth.”

She explained: “We had corporal punishment in our house. I had to catch them.

“I don’t think it hurts them too much, a quick slap on the legs.”

Mary became riled when her children raided her fridge – and took away items she needed for work.

The star said: “Taking something out of the fridge that I desperately needed for photography or a magazine shoot, they would run very fast.”

But children’s charity TACT – the UK’s largest fostering and adoption fundraisers – has hit back at the cake maker, branding her disciplinary methods unacceptable.

A TACT spokesman said yesterday: “Of course many children will experience corporal punishment and not suffer any lasting damage.

“However, this doesn’t make it acceptable. Children seem to be the only members in our society where some think it acceptable to use violence as punishment.

“TACT cares for vulnerable children in care, many of who have experienced abuse or neglect before coming into care. They can exhibit the most ­challenging behaviour as a ­consequence of their experiences.

“Our foster carers can never use physical punishment and there are always alternatives available.

“If they can cope without resorting to violence, then we all can.”

During the interview, which is due to be aired later this month, food writer Mary admits she was afraid of her own father.

She said: “I was frightened of my father. He was tough and I did not work very hard at school.

“He was not that kind of praise-worthy man.

“In our family my mother was hard working. We did things that cost nothing like walking and collecting blackberries.